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December 25, 2008

Irish robot to attempt Rubik’s record

by Sam Savage

The Irish inventor of a Rubik's cube-solving robot said he is planning to have his creation attempt a world record by solving the puzzle in about 60 seconds.

Pete Redmond said his invention, the RuBot 2, can usually solve the puzzle in about 35 seconds after scanning it with cameras in its eyes and his goal is to have the robot solve the puzzle in one minute including scanning time at the record attempt Jan. 8 in Dublin, The Sun reported Thursday.

There are cameras in RuBot 2's eyes that scan the cube before his pneumatic arms solve it, Redmond said. "He uses a very efficient computer algorithm to figure out how to unjumble the mixed up Rubik's Cube and usually comes up with a solution of less than 20 moves.

After the scan, he can usually do the solve in about 35 seconds, no matter how much it is mixed up, he said. The Guinness World Record attempt includes scanning time, and I am confident that we can do our complete scan and solve in around 60 seconds.